FARMED (2009-15)

The Fens is a region of reclaimed marshland in eastern England, which is now one of the richest arable areas of the UK. Paul Hart has been photographing this landscape of agribusiness for over ten years. FARMED (2009-2015) is the first in a three part series on the region exploring a linear landscape comprised primarily of straight lines with a flat horizon with monoculture at it’s core. Hart’s narrative pin points the objects that remain, when all that surrounds has been cleared by modern agricultural practice. His working method is in the vein of documentary, exploring our relationship to this landscape by highlighting elements that are so often overlooked. He employs the analogue process and traditional darkroom techniques, to convey something of the soulful in a landscape that is rarely considered of any aesthetic interest. FARMED is comprised of 56 photographs made by Hart as silver gelatin prints, first published in 2016 by Dewi Lewis. “The landscapes in Paul Hart’s series, Farmed, are at once beautiful and beleaguered, full and empty, alive and dead. The disappearances between these conditions are the true subjects. One feels their presence in every photograph....Hart’s photographs raise important questions about possession, ownership, mobility, stewardship, history, memory, perspective - the list goes on. But none of these would matter much if these photographs were not, in their attention to the poetry of the place, earnest and moving ” — Collier Brown, Editor 21st Editions